Home to numerous haunted places from cemeteries to restaurants, haunted beaches, and more, South Carolina is also home to one of the most haunted buildings in the nation. Legendary not only for its (alleged) haunts but also for its sprawling campus and signature Robert Mills architecture, the South Carolina Mental Asylum, also known as the Babcock Asylum in South Carolina, was built on Bull Street in Columbia in 1827. Here's more on this haunted South Carolina state hospital:

Over the next 175 years, thousands and thousands of patients would enter the asylum, later renamed the South Carolina State Hospital.

Surprisingly, in the beginning, patients from all walks of life were drawn to the new facility, which sported central heat (a luxury for the era) and even a rooftop garden.

Patients in those early days were responsible for paying for their stay at the facility and, according to a historical perspective posted by the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, the fees were somewhat based on the patient's ability to pay.

It didn't take long for overcrowding to become a huge issue at the state's asylum.

Additions were constructed to expand the already large complex. New auxiliary buildings provided essential services for caring for the patients, and yet... the conditions began and continued to deteriorate.

In recent times, the Babcock Building of the former South Carolina State Hospital has garnered quite the reputation for being (allegedly) haunted by the souls that lived — and died — within these walls.

What began as an upstanding place to seek quality mental health treatment soon became little more than a shelter for the mentally ill.

An 1870 report remarked on the dark and dank conditions within the facility which was also poorly ventilated.

Eventually, patients that were wealthy enough to pay their own way stopped relying on the facility for the careful rehabilitation of their mentally ill family members. That coincided with the state assuming responsibility for funding for the entire facility which, in turn, resulted in cutting costs of care and quality of life.

By 1900, a little more than 1,000 patients were admitted to the asylum each year and approximately 30 percent of the asylum's population died each year. The report mentioned above attributes the deaths, in part, to inadequate care and supervision.

With so many lives passing into the facility and never leaving, the former insane asylum's main building is said to be among the most haunted in the state, possibly the entire southeast.

Patients were housed in the Babcock Building until around 1991.

By then, the original main facade had grown to an epic size with scores of multi-level wings added onto the original structure.

In January 2020, a local media outlet reported the structure was purchased by a Virginia firm that plans a renovation and restoration of the building and a conversion from insane asylum to an apartment building with 208 units.

In the summer of 2019, YouTube user your5best posted drone video footage of the inside of the building as well as the weathered exterior and the grounds. Get a peek below:

Would you live in this allegedly haunted South Carolina State Hospital if it was revitalized? We'd love to know! Feel free to join the discussion in the comments on the Babcock Asylum in South Carolina!

Do you know of another haunted place in South Carolina that we should write about here? Nominate it, and tell us all about it! For now, consider taking a road trip to see some of these other haunted places in South Carolina.